Rally organisers described the protest movement as “the fight for civil rights of our generation”.Hundreds of mostly Latin American immigrants, waving foreign flags of their homelands, are now mobilizing politically to force the United States to guarantee an open door policy for their compadres back home.

If Mexico wants to dictate our immigration policy to us, let‚Äôs follow their example to the letter. That example is particularly relevant on this further day of protests demanding amnesty for illegals. Among the demonstrators in at least 60 cities nationwide will undoubtedly be thousands of border lawbreakers. What would Mexico do? The answer is easy: deport them on the spot. In 2002, a dozen American college students, in Mexico legally, participated peacefully in an environmental protest against a planned airport outside of Mexico City. They swiftly found themselves deported as law-breakers for interfering in Mexico‚Äôs internal affairs.

If Mexico was willing to strip these students of their duly-obtained travel visas, imagine what it would have done had the students broken into the country surreptitiously‚Äînot just summary deportation but undoubtedly howls of complaint to the U.S. government for winking at this double violation of Mexican sovereignty. Open borders propagandists in the U.S. constantly present deportation as a patent act of cruelty that no right-thinking person would tolerate. Yet Mexico has no qualms about deporting not just illegals but legal immigrants as well whom it deems fractious.

If participation in an environmental protest constitutes unlawful interference in Mexico‚Äôs internal affairs, how much more intrusive would it deem mass demonstrations to legalize immigration law-breakers? No issue is more central to a country‚Äôs sovereignty than immigration policy. Yet we won‚Äôt be seeing any statements by Mexican diplomats today urging its citizens in the U.S. to refrain from efforts to influence American laws.

It is particularly delicious to imagine what would happen if American students in Mexico ran the American flag up a flag pole over an upside down Mexican flag, as students in a Southern California high school did last month. An international crisis!

That’s right. More crowds on the streets, more casseurs robbing and beating protesters/celebrants, probably more riots.

This is nothing new of course. Just French history repeating itself. From “Nous Sommes Tous Des Casseurs” (We are all hooligans), written in 1994:

“In March 1994, the French government wanted to give its tender young wage slaves a 20%’ pay cut. The State must have figured it would be good training for their future careers as exploited human capital But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank: those vulnerable young workers stood up and told the State to royally (or rather democratically) fuck off. It took a month of demos, protests, and riots, becoming ever bigger, more violent, and out of control, for the government to finally back down.

One-fourth of young people in France are unemployed. The government, under prime minister Eduard Balladur, came up with the bright idea to “create jobs” by lowering the minimum wage for workers age 25 and under. The bill was called the CIP: contrat d’insertion professionelle, or “beginning work contract”. Supposedly, bosses would hire more youth if their wages were lower: it was presented as a way of “sharing jobs”, a remedy for unemployment. The anti-CIP movement of March 1994 can safely be called the biggest class struggle in Europe since the UK’s anti-Poll Tax movement of 1990-92, involving hundreds of thousands of demonstrators and rioters taking to the streets throughout the country many times over the course of a month… MORE

That was 12 years ago. I expect in 12 years 1/4 of all French youths may still be unemployed thanks to the country’s unworkable labour laws. The same labour laws protected by rioters and “cassuers” every time the government attempts to reform them.

“I am deeply worried because we are seeing an unleashing of violence by 2,000 to 3,000 thugs who come to smash and loot,” said embattled interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. “My objective is to avoid mistakes by the police, so that people can protest in safety.”

The police and independent analysts say that most of the vandalism and violence that has marred the protests has been by young men, largely immigrants or the children of immigrants, from tough, underprivileged suburbs, who roam in groups and have little else to keep them busy.

The casseurs are people who are apart from the political protests. Their movement is apolitical. It is about banal violence – thefts, muggings, aggression.”

The casseur phenomenon is revisiting old and disturbing ground. During student protests in 1994 over a plan to cut the legal minimum wage for the young, hundreds of youths from the suburbs descended on Paris to attach themselves to peaceful protests and turn their rage against the police.

Many of those youths, identified as coming in from the poor suburbs, battled the police, burned cars and smashed store windows.

In another incident, a television cameraman was beaten and kicked so badly as he filmed a gang of casseurs that he suffered a fractured skull.

In the current protests, the technology of mobile phones makes it easier for the roving bands of youths to coordinate their actions and warn one another about police movements.

Some of the youths even share instant war trophies: photographs and short scenes of violence and vandalism they have captured on their mobile phones. [A variation on Happy Slapping – ed]” MORE

Forfas, Ireland’s national policy advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation today releases its long-awaited study on the potential impacts of peak oil on the Irish economy A Baseline Assessment of Ireland’s Oil Dependence – key policy considerations. Forfas operates under the auspices of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Robert Hirsch collaborated on the study, so how adequately does it address the challenges that Ireland will face?

The study paints a very clear picture of Ireland’s degree of vulnerability. Having no indigenous sources of oil, and being dependent on transport, by air, sea and freight for its international connectivity, Ireland, they write, is “among the most sensitive (nations) to rising oil prices and therefore (will be among the) most vulnerable post-peak”. They have produced an ‘Oil Vulnerability Index’ which identifies the various trends that contribute to vulnerability to changes to oil supply. Ireland features near the top of each of them. The ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom economy has hugely increased national wealth, but has also massively increased levels of oil dependency. MORE